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A CBSA surveillance photo attached to a search warrant application shows Michael Kong leading a group of suspected Chinese migrants through a parking lot at Parker Place mall in Richmond, B.C., on June 13, 2015.CBSA

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VANCOUVER — The reason why Chinese nationals pay tens of thousands of dollars to smugglers to get them into North America has evolved over the years, a B.C. court heard Monday.

“There was a time when people were trying to avoid poverty and persecution, but more and more in recent years it has been a pattern where people actually want to immigrate to other countries to pursue economic opportunities for them and their children,” said criminologist Yvon Dandurand, a professor emeritus at the University of the Fraser Valley.

Dandurand was appearing as an expert witness for federal prosecutors during the start of a sentencing hearing for Michael Kong, the B.C. man who pleaded guilty this summer to being part of an elaborate human smuggling network that exploited an international park to bring Chinese migrants into Canada.

Michael Kong pleaded guilty to taking part in a human smuggling operation.Facebook

Such operations are very profitable, Dandurand testified.

“There are all kinds of estimates about money generated. It certainly goes into the hundreds of millions,” he said.

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“It is profitable mostly because a whole lot of people want to migrate to a different country who don’t necessarily have the means to do so. … There is a business opportunity there for criminal organizations that will sell their service because the service cannot be obtained legally.”

Following a years-long investigation by the Canada Border Services Agency, Kong, 62, was charged last year under section 117 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act with seven counts related to human smuggling between 2014 and 2015 involving 34 migrants, including several children. Investigator’s records previously obtained by the National Post following a court challenge suggested that several hundred migrants may actually have been helped over a period of years.

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Over the summer, Kong pleaded guilty to five of the counts and the two remaining charges were stayed. The offences carry a mandatory minimum sentence of three years if the Crown can prove that the crime was committed for profit or in association with or for the benefit of organized crime. Federal prosecutors told the court Monday they are seeking a jail term of six years.

Kong’s defence lawyer intends to challenge the constitutionality of the mandatory minimum.

There is a business opportunity there for criminal organizations

At the start of Monday’s hearing, court heard for the first time a summary of the key facts that Kong has admitted.

Crown prosecutor Charles Hough said that the CBSA investigation began when a “significant” number of Chinese nationals were found to be making refugee claims at a government office in Etobicoke, Ont.

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The investigation uncovered a recurring pattern. The migrants, typically from the Guangzhou region in southern China, paid smugglers in China $20,000 to $30,000 to help them get either student or visitor visas to enter the United States, Hough said. Once they arrived in the U.S. — entry cities included San Francisco, Honolulu and New York — they would make their way to Seattle.

That’s when Kong’s role kicked in. According to Hough, Kong “coordinated and organized” the movement of the migrants from the Seattle area to the B.C.-Washington State border using hired drivers.

The migrants would be dropped off on the U.S. side of Peace Arch Park — an international park located next to a major port of entry — near a set of washrooms.

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From there, the migrants would be “surreptitiously guided” to a pickup point on the Canadian side of the border in a residential area of Surrey, B.C. Again, Kong enlisted the help of drivers on the Canadian side.

Kong purchased airplane tickets from a mall in Richmond, B.C., for the migrants, who typically flew to Toronto where they would file refugee claims.

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Hough played for the court surveillance video footage from Vancouver International Airport showing Kong leading groups of people into the airport where he printed out boarding passes from electronic kiosks before leading them to the security gates.

According to Hough, Kong admitted to investigators that he had been involved in migrant smuggling for about 10 years and was typically paid US$1,500 to $2,000 per person and that he averaged 10 to 15 people per year.

Court heard Monday that during a search of Kong’s home, investigators found bundles of cash — US$119,000 — in Kong’s home office, documents on his computer itemizing which clients had or hadn’t paid, as well as various images of Peace Arch Park, including a Google satellite image highlighting various landmarks.

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